City of Singles

by Jason Bryan

  Soon I’m dancing with Ash and her arms are around me. Dougie’s tongue is in Shelby’s mouth right behind us, my eyes catch Regina at the table; looking at her phone. Finding balance getting tougher and my back growing sweaty, Ash and I retreat to the table. Her bag gets spilled on the floor, as I lean up from grabbing it, she kisses me. We make out right there and then. Dougie’s back at the table, he says something and taps me on the shoulder. Ash’s tongue in my mouth. More shots. Ash grabs my hard cock under the table, and rubs it until it’s down my pant leg, clearly feeling its size.

  Lights.

  Everyone squints and 10s drop to 7s. Anything below a 6 and you have to get out of the bar, fast, before your dick loses its courage. In a swirl of sound and light, stumbling, we nearly get into a fight outside the bar. Dougie grabs my arm and tells me to shut the fuck up. Cops. We walk halfway up the block, Regina trailing behind us two couples.

  “Are you guys going to be ok?” Regina pleads.

  “Yeah sweetie, we’re fine! Look!” Shelby says, doing a ballet move of sorts.

  I guess she’s trying to prove she’s not roofied.

  Ash shivers. “I just want to get home,” she whispers to me. Without hesitation I take her by the hand and lead her gently to a cab.

  “You guys going now?” Shelby calls to Ash.

  “Yeah,” she replies, acting tired but looking lusty.

  Regina runs over and hugs Ash. She looks me in the eyes and says “And you better behave!” I wink.

  Starts and stops, green lights, red lights. The West End. Her low rise apartment smells of old cigarettes and anal lube. Ashley’s little place with nice hardwood, classy furniture. My drunken ass knocked over a plant while trying to take off my shoes. In bed before I know it, fucking, she’s on top, maybe going to puke. The bathroom was nice while blowing chunks and trying to keep my boner. Brush my teeth using some crest and my finger, back into the bedroom. Fucking her missionary, it feels amazing. The flash of my iPhone, maybe I just took a few trophy photos. Squeaky bed and the headboard pounding the wall. Rolling her on her side and spoon fuck her, moans fill the tiny apartment. Stumbling while standing on her bed and knock over a lamp, managing to pile drive her pussy for a few minutes until falling over again. Finally her on all fours and slamming in doggystyle, cum on her ass, and it all goes black.

  I hate waking up like this. My phone beeps with an alarm at 7:30 AM. My head is pounding and my tongue tastes puke. Ash is still passed out, but grunts in disapproval that I’m getting up. Her room is a fucking mess, clothes everywhere. Where the fuck is my underwear, pants and shirt? Digging around in the mess of her room reveals my ginch under her bra. Throwing one leg through the briefs I notice specks of dried blood on my dick, looks like my middle finger that I used to probe her is coated as well. Fuck. There’s throw up mixed with cat fur crusting up my socks. While sneaking out of her room quietly to grab my shoes, putting them on I notice one is full of dirt. Fuck. Keys? Check. iPhone? Check. Wallet? Wallet? I look around for my wallet. Opening Ash’s bedroom door, light floods in and my wallet is sitting half buried under a bra. Snatching it fast to check for taxi funds. I have $30 in cash left, and an ATM slip of a $200 withdraw last night. Fuck. Closing her bedroom door this time without even trying to be quiet, then seeing myself out. It’s cold and it feels good on my fucking pounding skull. Nausea washes over me on my hustle towards Davie Street. Eight AM, shit, maybe I had booked an artist today for some studio time, yeah I’m pretty sure I did. Made it to Davie Street and then accidentally hailed a cab with my bloody period hand. A smiling brown man stops, my tired body hopping in the back and then commanding him to Gastown. My life, the way I’ve lived lately, is a kamikaze mission that never ends.

  12 Lessons in 1080p

  The door cracks open, smells of dirty dishes greet me as smoke spirits barely linger. Feet of lead, step after another step, turning the corner to my right. The studio space is basking in rich warm sunlight. On perfect, cloudless winter days like this, the sun ricochets off the cream coloured building across from mine. I wonder why I feel so at home in a space that’s so alone. The pre-drinking choice from last night, Jack, sits on the counter missing a neck’s worth of fun.

  What a night. My hungry stomach forces me to drop my phone on the couch, kick off my shoes, and pull some leftover stir fry from the fridge. After dealing with heating my meal, something glossy reflects on my couch. Current events and keeping up to date on the world is important, sad that my subscription to this magazine seems to only fuel my shitty moods. The cover reads “Death of the middle class”, it doesn’t register in my head yet. Glazed eyes and pages skipped through, the pictures are what I’d expect. My wiferowave and her pleasant beeps lure me away from The Atlantic, briefly skimmed through. The Jack scowls at me.

  Leaning up against the counter, this is my dining room table. My head is throbbing. The steam tickles my nose. Cheery sunny day fills my studio, only making me feel cold. The handyman doing repairs inside my head needs to put down the chainsaw. My dick is sore again, totally sexually spent. Everything that I thought when I was younger has turned out to be a lie. Here I am, having had great sex the night before with a tight bodied girl, and yet I’m dissatisfied. A baby corn crunches between molars. Sometimes I give these girls what I think they want, and not what I want. Jack winks at me from the counter.

  I love baby corn and black bean sauce. Sitting down in a flowery chair, the bowl of concentrated life sustaining yum gets placed on the coffee table. My iPhone is about to tell me what happened last night. The photo wall that pops up is full of colour. Photos taken of last night reveal busy streets, blurred lights, blonde and brunette girls. Spoonman on Granville makes for such a novel photograph. Glaring neon lights streaked by a slow exposure, a row of shots ringed by unfamiliar hands. Flipping through the photos and I’m greeted by another row of shots, and another. In the future the iPhone will record your blood alcohol level as meta data in each photo. A shot of of my mouth on a breast is sure to have been when wasted. Tough to believe I went home with a girl I don’t know again, photos of her body on my phone proof of a successful urban safari trip. A quick video of her legs spread, and I’m inside her. Objectively, I could use to lose a few pounds. My newly forming gut casts a shadow on the good parts. The bottle of Jack laughs.

  A laundry load of thoughts whirl around inside my head. Am I living in a mad world, or am I the mad one? By what metric can one measure his own dysfunctional behavior? A flick of my finger scrolls up on my photos, far up and back in time. A few photos of her, the girl my heart actually still misses. Funny how it works, you pine and bitch over one woman, and yet make no effort into being with her or find another like her. Instead you’re out doing shots with a girl you view as a piece of ass, drinking so you can get in the mood you need to be in so you can fuck her and have a fun night out. Jack is the hammer used to smash any purpose in life. Laughing to myself while I put my phone down, personal freedom and prosperity are my only goals. There was an election this weekend. I was more concerned with drinking and putting my dick in a female than voting. I feel like such a peasant.

  Still, maybe it’s possible to take this with a grain of salt as being a peasant is pretty fun these days. Without expectations of responsibility, I’m free. I jump to my feet and dance to a beat from memory. A hop, skip, and a jump to my desk, hands work my computer into blasting out an old Too Short track. Tonight I’m supposed to be going to the opening party of a new photography studio, douche buoys in an ocean of pretentiousness. First things first, I’m working on a piece of light art today. Shit, the girl I’m working with will be here soon.

  I fumble around with making myself look semi-presentable. The artist that shows up is bubbly and young. We spend the morning trying to find the right heat level for the glue gun. We have this metal basket we’re trying to glue cotton balls to, then attach a piece of yellow neon tubing to the bottom to create a white cloud with a yellow lightning bolt coming down from it. I’m trying to host t
his Stormy Nights themed art party in April and it doesn’t seem like we’re going to be ready for then. Fuck it. Hot glue turns out to burn my gloveless hands over and over leaving welts, at least she can laugh about it. Hours later, we finish the basket and it looks somewhat decent. I collaborate on art so naturally that these pieces seem to build themselves. If only lasting love was somewhat similar.

  The girl signs the guestbook listing what was accomplished today and is gone. My place is a fucking mess and it takes a half hour to clean, how one girl can end up using five dishes for her own personal lunch and three cups for coffee, I’ll never understand.

  Might as well get this party started, it’s already 6 PM. Reaching into the kitchen drawer to pull out a tumbler, it’s soon begging for ice cubes and hard bar. Or just straight liquor, in this mood ice is just garnish and doesn’t help me get to where I’m going any easier. Opening the fridge to grab some whiskey, I leave it open for a few seconds too long. Wasted vegetables and old chicken assault my senses. I can’t remember the last time a home cooked meal was made here, or shared with anyone. Closing the door, my mouth opens and in goes a big gulp of whiskey. Down goes the glass, my eyes close, friendly winds escape nostrils.

  Stepping away from the kitchen with a fading frown, if I wanted to ever be seen as a professional, I should learn to put my camera away properly after a shoot. It’s risky and dumb to leave it on the couch with the lens cap off. Then again, that dirt on the lens actually makes some photos look a bit raw. I documented some of the work we did today, and the battery is nearly dead. I’ll plug it in, copy the files off, and then charge it for tonight. The USB cable fits in the port and Windows pops up to greet the Canon 5D MK2. Looks like there are nearly 15 gigs of photos and video on here, so I copy them and lazily paste to desktop.

  Windows isn’t very subtle in letting me know the drive is full. Flashing drive lights are serenaded by the long grinding of my hard drive before the disk space manager pops up, followed by my frantic closing of that shit. Clicking the C: drive, and I anticipate having an early evening of being a digital monkey, swinging from folder to folder in search of waste to fling off my hard disk. Fat lesbians have been selling well lately, my job being to put small porno clips online with a banner ad under them. One folder reads ‘chunky lesbo slutzzz’ with 8 gigs of pie loving dykes inside it. Open wide recycle bin! A few trips to the kitchen for more Jack and its only freed up a few gigs. The thought crosses my mind to go get another drive, 1 TB these days is cheaper than a night out drinking.

  About ten folders deep in my C: folder, a few long forgotten gems grace my monitor. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to make room on my computer. A WMV thumbnail image hits my retina and I recognize it as a sex tape made with a girl named Tess. Long brown hair, a skinny body with small lemon shaped breasts and a large, round ass. My dick immediately swelled in response to her memory. Hormones cause thick saliva to form in my mouth while electric excited tingles flow down my spine. Her sex floods my mind and I’m instantly turned on at finding this fantasy flesh treasure on my drive. Our first meeting feels like it could’ve been yesterday; martinis, shit talk, laughing and banging our hands on the table. We were asked to leave, so we went to her place and fucked right in front of her windows.

  My paranoid mind runs deep, so the front door needs to be locked to watch it. Detouring to the bathroom to pick up a hand towel on my way back, I think I’m going to need this. The intensity of the memories flood back once I double click the movie, her delightful body getting fucked by me slams my mind with stimulation. After a few minutes of intense self-pleasuring, I’m flat on my back on the couch, spent; the movie still playing on the screen silently. The audio is fucked and it just hums, I hate sound when I’m watching porn anyways. My eyes close and a smile runs across my face. She came by to hang out and do blow a couple times, and drank a twixer of pear vodka straight from the bottle. The first time she asked me to take photos of her nude, the second time it was if I would make video with her. Her long middle finger loved to slide in and out of herself on camera. That huge ass with those little legs, her moaning wasn’t faked at all. She really loved to finger fuck herself while being watched.

  It was all her idea, too. In my old apartment, she questioned me on how I felt about artistic nudes. Not being too much of an idiot, her not-so-subtle cues could be seen a mile away. Of course I told her I enjoyed the female form. With that, she smiled, pulled her tight pants down a little and pressed herself up against the wall. Snap.

  “Don’t get my face in these photos, ok?” She said, almost bashfully.

  Of course not was translated into nods of reassurance. She brushed her hair back behind her ears, and pulled her pants down slowly. My eyes locked on her ass, and a little hint of a pink waxed slit peeked out from between her legs. My pulse was racing, fingers that were gripping the camera had turned white.

  She threw her head beyond her shoulders and arched her back, the beautiful symmetry of her smoothly bent body matched the curves in her full, womanly ass and hips. Amateur eyes guided her to bend forward, she flowed her body into a downward dog yoga pose. No wonder she has such a nice body. With her pants at her ankles, she giggled as she stumbled to one side. Lending a hand to help pull them off, her musky erotic scent lingered in the air once the panties hit the floor. She was naked and bending over for me to take photos, and was very turned on.

  The memories fly through my head, a buffet of erotic images. Back in time and I can still remember the cold AC giving her a few little goose bumps. A few more photos are taken, and she stops to walk to the kitchen. A residue of blow is on the counter, and an unopened flap finds its way into Tess’s palm. Unfolding it, she dumps it, and cracks it with a Fitness World card. Two big lines for both of us, and we bang them back. I feel a shiver down my back as the sexual energy just consumes my mind. She shivers a little, picks her shirt up off the chair, and puts it on while walking to her jeans.

  My back starts to get sore trying to get these photos, high elbows on the counter top just don’t really support me enough. A tornado of cocaine in my nose shakes the shutters on my heart, I should find a stool to sit on and catch my breath. The animal in me can focus on nothing but her alluring body. She steps into the legs of her panties, her hair falling in her face after leaning forward to pull them up. Her eyes fall on the obvious bulge in the front of my pants. She smiles as she walks over, her hands find my knees and she leans into my ear.

  “I want you to do something,” She coos. “Come.”

  Her hand finds mine and I’m pulled into the bedroom, she hops on the mattress and gets into a doggystyle position.

  “I don’t want to fuck yet, I want this to last longer tonight.” She pulls her panties just down to her ass crack.

  On her knees, she backs her barely covered ass up to the end of the bed.

  “Cum on my panties and ass, I want you to get off.”

  She’s a petite girl, I remember last time, we had sex once and she was sore the rest of the night. Not sure if I had fucked her hard or just until we ran dry. I haven’t had sex with her sober.

  I take the camera off and drop it on the bed. This might be a new speed record for how fast my dick came out of my pants as I smack it across her ass cheeks. I’m surprised that I’m almost already hard, considering the blizzard going on in my sinuses. The soft skin on her ass feels silky and warm to the head of my cock, and I rub it at the top of her ass crack. Her panties rub on my balls.

  She softly and slowly mumbles “That feels good” through gritted teeth.

  My pants fall to my knees and I struggle to stand shoulder width apart. My belt buckle makes a clanking noise against itself. Electric shocks of pleasure ripple up my spine and a chill washes over me. The cocaine, liquor, and sex mix up a cocktail of deityhood inside my mind.

  I am a god, and I will commune with my people. As your lord, in the form of a grey wolf. Her waist looks so small and narrow, while her wide hips and ass so full, a spring lamb for the taking
by he who dares.

  She lifts a hand to her face, spits, and reaches back between her legs and grabs my dick to stroke it. I see my penis disappear between her legs as the wet, soft hands glide up and down my shaft. She grips soft on the middle of the shaft, and squeezes harder as she pulls towards herself. Her soft palm slides off the head with a knee-weakening moist grip.

  My heart is racing, silence washing over me for a moment, my eyes close with my head tilted back. With a deeply exhaled breath, I picture my bones standing, without flesh. I feel my nose is frozen, every hair on the back of my neck at attention. I know she is stroking me right now, but the world has stopped and I’m completely in my own psyche, enjoying chemical bliss. Every synapse in my brain is in tune with pleasure. I know I’m breathing, but I don’t feel it. The body’s heart pounding inside my chest with a mind afloat on sexual highs, the soul left to hitchhike.

  All I feel is an intense warmth and pleasure inside of me, an energy that flows from dick to brain, and back down again. Car pooling my ecstasy down California highways of carnal pleasure ten-lanes wide, an extinction event of boredom, that pandemic flu of paradise. This is the opposite of a plague. Everything is glowing. I lose all concept of that which I have no concept for. I open my eyes. Looking down, she spits on her hand again and says “I’m getting tired, you need to take over,” a horny tone in her voice. When I first opened my eyes I wasn’t very hard, but the sight of her body gets me going again immediately.

  I reach down and grab my dick out of her hand. The head glows an angry red, and I push it down to rub against her panties where her beckoning lips peek out.

  She moans softly “Not yet, more teasing ...” I tell her I know and rub my cock up and down her damp panties.

  The head just barely pokes the cloth inside of her, and she gasps. I pull it back out, her pussy being teased sends a shock-wave of chemically enhanced pleasure through her body, my knees shiver. I breathe out hard as she reaches back and pulls her panties to one side, and rubs my manhood against her dripping wet folds. Her hand finds the end of my cock is covered in precum and she moans a little.